Saturday, March 5, 2016

How to Win at Speed Dating

Alyssa mentioned that BYU was hosting a speed dating event Friday night and I responded "And we're going!" We pause our Lego Batman 2 game at the appointed time and head on up to the Wilk. We're punctual people so we arrived just as it should have been starting. We're joking and laughing about what we're going to do when it ends up being just the two of us there when we walk in and see a massive line of people.
The line stretched on ahead of us and was continually growing behind us. It was amazing. Who knew there were so many desperate single people at BYU?? ... Anyway, we're stuck in line so long that the event people start yelling at us to just talk to the people around us in line while we wait to get let in. Talk to the people around us in line?? That's ridiculous! I came for speed dating: quick conversations that have a cutoff point. If I wanted to socialize with people in a line I would just go grocery shopping! I felt cheated and told Alyssa we should leave. Gotham City needed us. But she convinced me to stick it out by reminded me that I do really want to check speed dating off my bucket list. So we stayed and obediently chatted. I met a guy who really reminded me of a robot. I think it's because he didn't laugh at my jokes.When we finally get let in, they had given up on trying to place people according to personality test results. Mainly because they'd run out of room at the tables. Instead they had us just line up along the walls across from one another. They decided to just line us up with the people who had been around us in line so I started off with robot man some more. He showed me his results for the personality test that pretty much proved he was a robot. As if I couldn't already tell from his missing sense of humor. The one thing he did that I appreciated was he found us a random spot in the table groups and got us into that rotation instead of standing against the wall.
That's when the fun really began. Robot man moved down the line and I got the next guy. We started off with the regular what's your name and where are you from questions. And then *whistle blow* our time was up and he was leaving. I was amazed by how fast speed dating really is. Pretty much the same routine happened with the next guy. I realized how pointless this was seeming. How is finding out someone's name and where they're from going to help me find a soul mate?? (Because obviously that's the true reason we were all there tonight) The only important thing you learn from those questions is whether they're from Utah and that red flag is easily found out just through regular conversation. So I decided to change my tactics.
The next guy that showed up I said "As you can read, my name is Kendall and your name is Dan. (Obviously names have been replaced to protect identity. Or because I don't remember any of them.) Here's my question for you Dan, if Aliens about nine feet tall suddenly jumped through the ceiling right now, how would you defend yourself with what you have around you?" He struggled to think of anything that would work and pretty much just said he would run. It wasn't a very good answer and he lost whatever points he'd gained by wearing a wolf shirt. Actually he'd already lost the wolf shirt points by not even knowing the Office joke about wolf shirts.
After him, my memories start to blur. One started asking me questions about where I was from because I would even ask him a question so I decided he was boring and just stuck to the basics for him.
The next guy that came around, I asked "If I turned into a werewolf right now what would you do?" He said that he'd try to befriend me before just running away because then he would hopefully avoid getting eaten and also have a werewolf friend. That was a pretty good answer. And he came up with it very quickly so he got points for that. But then he asked me if I could be any animal, what would it be, and he asked it in a way as if his question was just as interested as mine. Maybe if I'd asked him what his favorite color was. Ridiculous.
It was after that guy that they announced that we were now entering the group date of the night and we could go to country swing dancing, latin dancing, or minute to win it games. I chose country swing. It was a grand old time of either getting thrown around by guys with muscles or getting hopelessly dizzy with the nervous guys who just kept spinning.
So I ended up having a very average night without any promise of a future spouse to show for it. After we regrouped, I found out Alyssa's story. An odd fellow had decided he was going to follow her around the whole night without any invitation to do so. Even when she informed him she was going to go sit down to get away, he informed her that he was going to keep following her around if that was alright. And the kind Alyssa said that it was. And when the odd fellow worked up the courage to ask her for her number, Alyssa reluctantly gave it because she is a saint. I don't know why she always gets the more interesting experiences! Alyssa was clearly the winner of the night.